PortraitNicolas Sarkozy’s former eminence grise has experienced the ordeal of detention and is finding it increasingly difficult to get out of his many legal and financial troubles. Meeting with the man who, at 77, still swears by his honesty.
Between his daily visit to the infirmary and a walk in the cramped courtyard of the prison of La Santé, an old man, light shirt and trousers, sits in his cell. He puts on a jumper, then a second, the cold seizes him, he adjusts his glasses, then resumes his reading, a thousand times interrupted by the hubbub of the prison: yesterday’s world, by Stefan Zweig. His gaze must stop on these few words, written in 1942 by the Austrian writer, the day before his suicide: “What made us so happy concealed at the same time a danger that we did not suspect…”
Here is the prisoner Claude Guéant, 77, plunged back a decade, when he was the all-powerful secretary general of the Elysée (2007-2011), both right arm and gray eminence of Nicolas Sarkozy. It was before his world collapsed, before the indictments, the trials, the senescence… And therefore, the prison, from December 13, 2021 to the following February 9. Imprisoned for being too late to repay his debts. Hospital stays follow one another now: shingles, inguinal hernia, endocarditis…
He welcomes us to his home in the 16e arrondissement of Paris, with this somewhat outdated courtesy that he will never depart from. He receives in the afternoon, when he considers himself presentable. We know each other well, our first meeting dates back to 1994. Claude Guéant, corseted prefect, irreproachable senior civil servant, adored by the right and respected by the left, was then director general of the national police.
“If I hadn’t had the career development that I had, nothing would have happened to me. I would have had a quiet and pleasant old age, if I had remained prefect, ”says Claude Guéant
Twenty-eight years later, the former Minister of the Interior (2011-2012) is idling. He kept his mania for noting everything down on little index cards. Even defrocked, “the Cardinal”, as he was nicknamed because of his propensity to order, in the shadows, the smooth running of the executive, kept his habits. Its interior is sober, some photos of it with « its “president, Nicolas Sarkozy, a saber offered by the Algerian Abdelaziz Bouteflika…
In front of us, he revisits his disgrace, without the shadow of any real regret or the beginning of remorse. The ex-“Cardinal” is not ready to confess his sins. “It’s dizzying” is it suitable all the same, before brandishing a rather convenient explanation: “I was the most powerful man in France, it earned me a lot of enemies. If I hadn’t had the career development that I had, nothing would have happened to me. I would have had a peaceful and agreeable old age if I had remained prefect. » His cheeks suddenly flush, a sign of emotion in this compunctioned being. He drops: “Being imprisoned was a very big shock, and I must say that all this time I was inhabited by a feeling of intense revolt, a feeling of injustice. And I still am. »
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